myArmoury.com - EBE South German Longsword, 2010

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John O'Connor

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Posts: 1 Location: Revere, MA

Sat 02 Apr, 2011 4:43 pm

Beautiful sword. How does it handed with the complex guard? I mean shifting grips, etc.

Thanks

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Nathan Robinson

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Posts: 11,553 Location: San Francisco

Sun 24 Apr, 2011 11:16 pm

John O'Connor wrote:

Beautiful sword. How does it handed with the complex guard? I mean shifting grips, etc.

I've been meaning to photograph the hilt in the hand, but have not had time to properly set up for a shot like that. It' snot as easy to shoot a photo of myself with both hands gripping a sword and no assistant!

Attached are photographs of an antique sword with a similar hilt that have been sent to me recently. As you can see, the sword is of hand-and-a-half proportions and allows about as much flexibility as any compound-hilted longsword would. As with other longswords, the thumb can be used on the quillon block as well as used to grasp the thumb-ring.

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Attachment: 122.29 KB

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Stephen Curtin

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Posts: 1,220 Location: Cork, Ireland

Mon 25 Apr, 2011 2:46 am

Thanks for the pic Nathan.

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Nathan Robinson

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Posts: 11,553 Location: San Francisco

Mon 25 Apr, 2011 8:26 pm

To give a better impression of the sword's size, here are some snapshots of it with these other pieces:

Phoenix Metal Creations Hand-and-a-Half Sword
Arms & Armor Custom Swiss Saber
Arms & Armor Custom German Bastard Sword

[ Linked Image ]

[ Linked Image ]

Click photos for full-sized versions

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Wesley Nilsen

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Posts: 10 Location: Rosenberg, TX

Tue 17 Jul, 2012 11:47 am

Re: EBE South German Longsword

Actually this is not a longsword. A longsword has a double-edged blade, and actually if this had a double-edged blade it would be a side-sword. Since it is single-edged, it is a backsword. Trust me - I've studied day and night (literally) and learned to classify almost every sword there is, and written an encyclopedia of swords.

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Sean Flynt

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Posts: 5,981 Location: Birmingham, Alabama

Tue 17 Jul, 2012 12:27 pm

It certainly IS a longsword.

http://wallacelive.wallacecollection.org/eMus...detailView

http://wallacelive.wallacecollection.org/eMus...detailView

http://wallacelive.wallacecollection.org/eMus...detailView

http://wallacelive.wallacecollection.org/eMus...detailView

http://wallacelive.wallacecollection.org/eMus...detailView

http://wallacelive.wallacecollection.org/eMus...detailView

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Bill Grandy

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Posts: 4,194 Location: Northern VA,USA

Tue 17 Jul, 2012 10:17 pm

Re: EBE South German Longsword

Wesley Nilsen wrote:

Wesley, with all due respect, I think you'll find that the historical view of terminology was not nearly so cut and dry as the modern view. (and you'll find that there are plenty of people on this board who are quite the experts of etymology!) For example, there's technically no such thing as a "sidesword" (spada da lato), as this is a modern term that was invented based on a misunderstanding of a phrase from Marozzo (where he mentions a generic sword at the side, but was misinterpreted to mean a specific type of sword). The Italians of the time never used that term, but instead used either the word "spada" (sword) or occassionally "spada da filo" (edge sword).

And the historical definition of longsword does not have anything to do with how many edges the weapon has. In fact, the historical definition, by all accounts, seems to only require that a longsword should be [unsurprisingly] long. Some historical references define a longsword as a single handed weapon (such as George Silver's 16th century treatise on martial arts), so we really can't generalize too much without accepting the fact that we would be imposing modern definitions on historical items.

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